Thicker Than Water

It startled me, and made me take a step back, not sure for a moment if he was going to follow it up and turn this into a real fight.

He didn’t. He just stood there with his hands raised in a guard stance, like an ecclesiastical Bruce Lee. The effect was a little spoiled, though, by how badly he was shaking.

‘You saw what happened tonight,’ he blurted out. ‘And what almost happened. I mean it, Felix. Keep your distance from it. Don’t even ask any more questions. Whatever it looks like - it’s not yours. Not your kind of thing.

He was having to force the words out by this time. His face was pale and there was an audible catch to his breathing.

‘So you won’t trust me?’ I said, more quietly.

‘Oh, I trust you, Fix,’ Matt said tremulously. ‘I know exactly what I can expect from you. I’ve known ever since the first time I took your confession.’

I didn’t see that one coming, and it silenced me as effectively as a punch in the gut. Before I could answer, Matt pushed violently past me, barging me out of his way, and ran from the room.

I followed more slowly, not trying to catch him. It seemed like we’d reached a conversational impasse.

The door slammed below me, and as I came down into the hall Pen came up from the Stygian depths and met me at ground level. She looked at the door, then back at me.

‘Well, that was loud,’ she said.

I shook my head, too uneasy about what had just happened to bother to hide it. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I took it as far away from you as I could. I’m sorry you got landed with Coldwood too. Did he ask you about Rafi?’

Pen nodded. ‘I just said what you told me to say. I haven’t visited Rafi in more than a month, and I don’t know where he is.’

‘Good. There’s nothing to prove you had any part in it. He can’t get from me to you.’

She didn’t seem to want to pursue that topic any further. ‘So did you sort it all out with Matt?’

‘No.

‘Didn’t think so. Come on down and talk me through it.’

I normally keep Pen at arm’s length from my professional life, but on the few occasions when we’ve got down to cases, as it were, she’s turned out to have some pretty shrewd insights. I looked at my watch. Too little left of the night now to make an issue of it anyway, and I was at that stage where you’re too close to what you’re looking at to see it at all.